TigerBill's DrumBeat Community Forums for Free Expert Advice on Drums and Percussion.

No doubt the Internet is a fantastic world with information on just about everything at your fingertips, but it's also a playground for criminals looking to steal your hard earned cash!

And especially in these hard economic times, you can expect to see many more scams popping up. I'm sure you're already aware of the email type scams and may have already received at least one from some son of a (bi**h!), I mean son or daughter or a deceased prime minister, etc., who left 100 million dollars or so behind and this kid needs the help of a stranger to get it out of the country. In return, he's willing to split it with you - $50 million dollars - for your trouble! This is a common scam - I receive at least 2 or 3 of these emails every day! Lots of dead prime ministers going around I guess! Every other similar sob story you receive by email is a scam too!

Some of the worst scams are ones that you may come across as you surf the web. It may be a website that pops up when you're trying to access another site, telling you how to make thousands of dollars a month on the Internet just by working a few hours a week. They're all the same. You'll see the checks that show the thousands of dollars they made as PROOF! And they're willing to share their secret to all of this cash with you for only $1 or $2! You may be tempted to order it, due to the low cost of entry, but I would suggest that you don't! You'll find that they'll charge your credit card the $1 along with another hundred or two that you weren't told about! And what happened to the valuable secret information they were going to share with you? You just received it. They were scamming you!

Another big scam on the Internet has to do with all of the cash you can make from simply filling out surveys on your computer. Is that a scam, too? Some are total scams and some are actually legit, but they all exaggerate the amount of profit you can make.

My son, who's in college and looking for some extra cash, tested the survey scam for himself. He signed up at no cost to him (at least that was a plus!) and instantly received 4 surveys that took him about 20 minutes to complete. Not bad, he thought. He was excited! At that rate he could fill out about a dozen surveys per hour and make some fast, easy cash! Great, that is, until he learned exactly how much money he made for filling out the four surveys - which came to a grand total of 65 cents! At that rate, 20 minutes was way too much time to spend! He would have made much more in 20 minutes working a minimum wage job!

So, how can you stay safe from all of the crooks on the Internet and how do you know when an offer is a scam or when it may actually be worth considering?

Here are two simple rules that I live by:

1) Common Sense. For example, put yourself in the place of the guy or gal offering you the chance to make fast cash. If you found a way to make thousands of dollars per month over the Internet would you share it with thousands of others and ruin your chances of continuing to make the same profit? Or would you want to keep it a closely guarded secret? If you wouldn't share it than you have to ask why would they be willing to share it with you? Especially when they're only asking for $1 or $2 in return? Either they are much better people than you or I, or they are scamming you!

2) If you are faced with making a decision on whether an offer is a scam or not, just follow this age old advice: If something seems too good to be true, it probably IS! You will never go wrong with that. Or, at least, you'll never be scammed!

If you have an scam stories of your own, whether it's something you or someone you know has fallen for or was at least tempted to try, feel free to post it here!

Good Luck!

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Tiger Bill Meligari
Tension Free Drumming